


the road less traveled is the road between you & me

by marsistrash



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Gen, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 01:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2047938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marsistrash/pseuds/marsistrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Haruna first joins his team in the Seniors, Abe isn’t sure what to expect from someone who looks like they’d rather be anywhere else. He has no control, and he’s sort of an asshole, but with his strength, Haruna really is an amazing pitcher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the road less traveled is the road between you & me

**Author's Note:**

> self harm warning! possibly could come across as suicidal ideation and theres a slgihtly graphic mention of blood as well in relation to that also yeah im writing from my own experience so [shrugging emoji]
> 
> crying boys
> 
> man fuck haruna so much middle school abe is freshman me go ddamn
> 
> nowhere near caught up on the manga l o l so strictly anime based
> 
> titled from endling, "paper plates and loose sheets" i wrote this while listening to my own fanmix (http://8tracks.com/hmsturdle/no-one-wants-to-get-hurt) cuz im trash also ftr this is such an unhealthy relationship i only care bc its cathartic

Abe thinks that maybe--if he were more like Mihashi, for example--he would be able to forgive Haruna. Mihashi wants so badly to be liked that he’s willing to forgive someone who even threatened to break his arm--and just thinking about it pisses him off, because Mihashi really needs to learn to stick up for himself better but--

In any case, Abe is not Mihashi, and he can’t forgive Haruna. Haruna doesn’t deserve to be forgiven--he’s so self absorbed that he won’t even admit that he’s at fault, that maybe there’s a reason for Abe to call him the worst, that you can’t treat your teammates like inanimate objects and just ignore their feelings and opinions. But now Haruna is off basking in everyone’s attention and praise, so what does he care. Haruna’s not hung up over this; Haruna is moving on and living his self absorbed little life, where Abe continues not to matter at all. Haruna’s not going to get a bruise or accidentally scratch himself and think of Abe. Abe is irrelevant to Haruna’s life.

It’s only when he feels his fingernails digging into his upper thigh through his training uniform that he realizes how angry he’s getting. It scares him, so he just wipes the barely-present sweat off his hands on the sides of pants and thinks about something else--like Mihashi. Who actually matters.

 

* * *

 

It’s the best eight game that tips the scales at last. Haruna is a pain in the ass, but Abe’s pretty sure by now that he’s managed to earn at least a little bit of his respect, except that Haruna just walks right over him, even pretending to humor him like a small child. How can he say that there’s no reason for him to try--isn’t that what everyone else is doing? This is exactly what Abe’s been saying all along--Haruna only cares about himself. Everyone else is just there for him to use as he pleases, apparently. And then he walks away. 80 pitches, 80 careless, useless pitches, that’s all. What was the point of all that pain, when he doesn’t even matter?

He punches the bathroom wall after Haruna leaves--he thinks he’d like to punch Haruna himself, but even he has more self control than that. The tiles on the wall do nothing more than provide solidity, leaving Abe with aching fingers that itch for something more tangible--something he can wrap his fingers around, like his own neck, maybe. Head dropped forward, hand clutching his neck--it’s a position that feels solid, stable, safe. And it’s where he goes when he screams into his pillow that night, raking his nails down the back of his neck as he shoves his face into the pillow. The uniform’s neckline won’t cover it up but he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, he just needs to do something with this feeling coursing through his skin to his fingertips.

 

* * *

 

The more practice games they have--the more the stress of the approaching tournament mounts--Haruna gets progressively more difficult to deal with. Abe tries not to get dragged into it, but if Haruna is trying to pick a fight with him, of course he’s going to fight back. His control is still shit but if he would at least try to pitch to Abe’s signs, their team would be doing a whole lot better than it is, and both of them know it so why can’t they stop fighting about it.

They have another awful argument--this time, there’s no one else around to tell them to shut up and get back to work, so it just escalates into increasingly personal comments. Haruna is self obsessed and arrogant and doesn’t care about anything but himself. Abe is pathetically terrified of being useless and he’s only trying to convince himself that his pitch-calling is just as useless because he knows that if anyone else wasn’t so scared of Haruna’s pitches he’d be off the starting line up immediately. Abe shuts up. Haruna’s wrong, of course. He just doesn’t care enough to keep arguing.

But when his fingers wrap around his arm to press into his most recent bruises and remind him that he needs to focus--there aren’t any there today. It’s a silly thing to get upset over--it’s honestly a small victory, even--but he can’t mute Haruna’s voice in his head, over and over reminding him that he’s useless. Maybe Haruna’s getting better at control (he knows this isn’t true). Maybe Abe’s getting lazy (he knows this isn’t true either). Maybe Haruna’s going to move on to his next piece of human training equipment, and Abe has definitely failed in everything that he had meant to do.

Shaking--he can’t remember when he started shaking--he pulls himself into a fetal position, knees up to his chest and half-bitten fingernails clawing up the back of his upper arms. In the morning he decides that because it’s been so hot lately, he must have really been sweating last night and that’s why he didn’t notice the blood until now. He’s almost late for practice after the time it takes to scrub his fingernails clean.

 

* * *

 

As the season goes on, Abe thinks that he and Haruna are getting along better, that maybe they’re almost sort of friends--Haruna still teases him, but he praises him as well sometimes, too. His control is of course as terrible as ever, and Abe still has bruises, but they’re fading. Not as quickly replaced as they once were.

It’s around this time that Abe’s other concerns about Haruna start coming up--he’s always known, of course, that Haruna is very attractive, but it hadn’t seemed important before. Now it’s a thought that follows him around during practice, hovering particularly close when they’re changing in the locker room. As much as it tries to ignore it, he’s starting to get a loose grasp of what this is and he has no idea what to do about it--except he knows that asking his teammates would be a bad idea.

And yet somehow he finds himself asking Haruna about it--not saying anything specific, of course. Just, people say this and that but what do you think. Haruna gives him a weird look but tells him that if people are like that it’s probably their own business, isn’t it? Abe isn’t sure what he expected, or even why he asked, but that night he has trouble falling asleep again and as he watch the blades of his fan spin by, he wraps his fingers around his forearm and pushes his thumb into the fresh bruise there. Hard. He’s the team’s catcher; he should be thinking about Haruna in relation to baseball, not--this. He needs to focus. “This” doesn’t come up again.

 

* * *

  
When Haruna first joins his team in the Seniors, Abe isn’t sure what to expect from someone who looks like they’d rather be anywhere else. He has no control, and he’s sort of an asshole, but with his strength, Haruna really is an amazing pitcher. It’s difficult keeping up with the speed of his pitches, and although Abe’s getting better, his body is still covered in a multitude of bruises. He traces the discolored skin as he undresses at home, pressing on the ones that hurt the most to remind himself that next time he’ll be better--next time he won’t get hurt.


End file.
